Thread: Secret Ransom Payment Is More Evidence of the Enormous Fraud of the Iran Deal

Secret Ransom Payment Is More Evidence of the Enormous Fraud of the Iran Deal


President Obama with Secretary of State Kerry (Kevin Lamarque/Reuters)

August 3, 2016 12:25 PM

The Wall Street Journal is reporting today that the United States secretly sent $400 million in cash on an unmarked cargo plane to Iran on January 17, 2016, to facilitate a swap that day of four innocent Americans held by Iran for seven Iranian criminals held by the U.S. Fourteen additional Iranians were removed from an INTERPOL wanted list as another part of this arrangement.

The prisoner swap was announced on the Iran deal’s Implementation Day (January 16) — when most sanctions were lifted from Iran and it received $150 billion in sanctions relief after the IAEA certified that Tehran had complied with certain requirements of the nuclear deal.

Obama officials have denied that the $400 million was a ransom payment. Instead, they say it was the first installment of an American payment to resolve a dispute over a pre-1979 arms deal with the Shah’s government.

According to the Journal article, the U.S. sent Iran wooden pallets of euros, Swiss francs, and other currencies because U.S. transactions with Iran in dollars are illegal under American law. Obama officials are asserting that the timing of the cash shipment to Iran was coincidental and that the negotiations to convince Iran to free the U.S. prisoners “were completely separate” from the nuclear talks.

If this is true, why the secrecy surrounding the cash shipment to Iran? Why did Obama fail to disclose this shipment to the American people or Congress?

I am concerned that the negotiations to free the U.S. prisoners and the ransom payment were deliberately structured by the Obama administration so that it could avoid briefing Congress before it voted on the Iran deal. Under the Corker-Cardin Act (the Iran Nuclear Agreement Review Act of 2015), the Obama administration was required to provide to Congress for a congressional review of the Iran deal:​

any additional materials related thereto, including annexes, appendices, codicils, side agreements, implementing materials, documents, and guidance, technical or other understandings, and any related agreements, whether entered into or implemented prior to the agreement or to be entered into or implemented in the future.

Given the negotiating record of the nuclear talks, it is impossible to believe there was no link between the Iran deal and the release of the American prisoners.

More likely, the Obama administration desperately wanted Iran to release the Americans as part of the nuclear agreement but Tehran refused until sanctions were lifted and it received a large ransom payment.

This is not the first time the Obama administration has paid ransom to Iran. It paid $500,000 each to free American hikers captured by Iran in 2011 through the government of Oman.

Why did Obama fail to disclose this shipment to the American people or Congress?

As I explain in my new book, Obamabomb: A Dangerous and Growing National Security Fraud, the nuclear deal with Iran and the Obama administration’s defense of it are rife with deceptions and outright lies. Contrary to Obama-administration claims, the timeline to an Iranian nuclear bomb will shorten — not lengthen — because of this deal.

The agreement also has very weak verification provisions. We also know from a May 5, 2016, New York Times profile of national-security adviser Ben Rhodes that he manipulated journalists by giving them false narratives intended to promote President Obama’s nuclear diplomacy with Iran.

Last month, the Obama administration celebrated the one-year anniversary of the nuclear deal by claiming that Iran has fully complied with the agreement.

There is compelling evidence this is false and that Iran has been engaged in massive cheating. In addition, contrary to assurances by President Obama and Secretary of State Kerry that the nuclear agreement would improve U.S.–Iran relations and help bring Iran into the community of nations, Iran’s behavior has worsened and our relationship with the mullahs has weakened since the nuclear deal was announced.

Meanwhile, Iranian officials are complaining that the nuclear deal has not been generous enough to Iran. Further, the White House has been so active in encouraging U.S. and international firms to do business in Iran that leading members of Congress have accused the Obama administration of being Iran’s global “lobbying shop.”

So what should the next president do about the fraudulent nuclear deal with Iran? In an NRO article in July, I argued that the best option would be to tear it up and start over, following these ten principles:

1. Iran must cease all uranium enrichment and uranium-enrichment research.
2. Iran cannot have a heavy-water reactor or a plant to produce heavy water.
3. Robust verification, including allowing “anytime, anywhere” inspections by IAEA inspectors of all declared and suspect nuclear sites.
4. Iran must fully and truthfully answer all questions about its prior nuclear-weapons-related work.
5. Iran must curtail and agree to limitations on its ballistic-missile program.
6. Lift sanctions in stages in response to Iranian compliance with the agreement.
7. Iran must agree to end its meddling in regional conflicts and its sponsorship of terror.
8. Threats by Iran to ships in the Persian Gulf, U.S. naval vessels, and American troops must cease.
9. Iran must cease its hostility toward Israel.
10. Iran must release all U.S. prisoners.

Hillary Clinton is certain to ignore this advice — she owns this nuclear agreement as much as President Obama does. Donald Trump has repeatedly attacked the Iran deal but says he wants to renegotiate a better one. That’s a better path forward.

— Fred Fleitz is senior vice president for policy and programs with the Center for Security Policy. He followed the Iranian nuclear issue for the CIA, the State Department, and the House Intelligence Committee during his 25-year government career.

http://www.nationalreview.com/articl...ran-deal-fraud

Coincidence Or Not? WH Vs. State Dept. On Secret Iran Payments

August 3, 2016



This Morning, The Wall Street Journal Is Reporting That " The Obama Administration Secretly Organized An Airlift $400 Million Worth Of Cash To Iran That Coincided With The January Release Of Four Americans Detained In Tehran."

"The Obama administration secretly organized an airlift of $400 million worth of cash to Iran that coincided with the January release of four Americans detained in Tehran, according to U.S. and European officials and congressional staff briefed on the operation afterward. (Jay Solomon And Carol E. Lee, "U.S. Sent Cash To Iran As Americans Were Freed," The Wall Street Journal, 8/3/16)

"Wooden Pallets Stacked With Euros, Swiss Francs And Other Currencies Were Flown Into Iran On An Unmarked Cargo Plane, According To These Officials." "Wooden pallets stacked with euros, Swiss francs and other currencies were flown into Iran on an unmarked cargo plane, according to these officials. The U.S. procured the money from the central banks of the Netherlands and Switzerland, they said. (Jay Solomon And Carol E. Lee, "U.S. Sent Cash To Iran As Americans Were Freed," The Wall Street Journal, 8/3/16)

The Payment Was The First Installment Of The $1.7 Billion Iran Nuclear Agreement . "The money represented the first installment of a $1.7 billion settlement the Obama administration reached with Iran to resolve a decades-old dispute over a failed arms deal signed just before the 1979 fall of Iran's last monarch, Shah Mohammad Reza Pahlavi." (Jay Solomon And Carol E. Lee, "U.S. Sent Cash To Iran As Americans Were Freed,"The Wall Street Journal, 8/3/16)

Today, State Department Spokesman John Kirby Actually Argued The Timing Of A Cargo Plane Of Cash Landing In Iran As Hostages Were Released Was Merely "Coincidental" And Helped U.S. Taxpayers

State Department Spokesman John Kirby Today Claimed That The Secret Payment Was Benefiting Taxpayers" STATE DEPARTMENT SPOKESMAN KIRBY: "It's not that we believe we owe. I don't have the payment schedule in front of me. This compromise was actually done to the taxpayers' benefit t=here because there was potentially billions of dollars additionally that they would have had to pay had we not reached this compromise.

And that's billions of dollars more that would have been available to Iran that they are not going to have now.

"FOX NEWS' BILL HEMMER: HEMMER: "But it's clear this was not made public. And it appears that it was kept secret-- and it appears it was kept secret and it smells. When you see a video at night of an unmarked jet with pallets of Euros and Swiss francs being unloaded as a payment to Iran, it looks bad and it smells."

JOHN KIRBY: "I'll let you speak to how you want to characterize video coverage of this. What I can tell you is there was no secret about it. The President spoke about it in January, the Secretary spoke about it, I spoke about it. Everybody has been honest about what happened, why it happened and how it happened.

And oh by the way, the teams that were negotiating the release of our Americans were completely separate than the team working in the Hague tribunal. It was simultaneously done and the timing is coincidental.

" HEMMER: "In the Wall Street Journal it talks about Iranian press reports. Straight out of Tehran they quoted a senior Iranian defense official as saying it was a ransom payment. Are they wrong?

" KIRBY: "Yes, they are. They are absolutely wrong, completely wrong. You can believe us who talked about this on camera and on the record since January or you can believe unnamed anonymous defense official from Iran. You choose who you are going to believe to be more credible.

" HEMMER: "$1.3 billion to go, correct. Is that more pallets of euros headed for Tehran." KIRBY: "I'm not going to get into the payment schedule. This was a compromise deal and that was the money agreed to." (John Kirby, America's Newsroom, Fox News, 8/3/16)



But Back In January, White House Spokesman Josh Earnest Claimed That The Payment Was Related To The Release Of U.S. Hostages

White House Spokesman Josh Earnest Admitted That Iran Payment Was Related To The Release Of U.S Hostages.

QUESTION: "Okay, but as I understand it, the Department of State announced this payment of $1.7 billion to the government of Iran just before the plane carrying the freed Americans landed in Geneva.

You're really telling me that this is an absolute coincidence that this payment just happened to coincide with the precise moment when the American prisoners were flying to freedom?"

WHITE HOUSE SPOKESMAN JOSH EARNEST: Jon, I think we've made pretty clear that this is not a coincidence. The fact is, these kinds of diplomatic opportunities.

" QUESTION: "So it was -- because Paul Ryan has suggested this was a ransom payment. You saw his statement."

"EARNEST: He's wrong about that.

" QUESTION: "But you're saying that this is connected with the freedom of.

" EARNEST: "What I'm suggesting is that the successful resolution of our concerns about Iran's nuclear program created a series of diplomatic opportunities for the United States that we've capitalized on. And we used that opening and we used that deeper diplomatic engagement to secure the release of five American citizens who are being unjustly held inside of Iran. And we used that diplomatic opening to resolve a longstanding financial claim that the Iranians had against the United States in a way that ultimately saves U.S. taxpayers billions of dollars, potentially up to $6 billion or $7 billion. So this is exhibit A in the administration pursuing tough, principled diplomacy in a way that actually ends up making the American people safer and advancing the interests of the United States more effectively than military actions."

(Josh Earnest, White House Press Briefing, Washington D.C., 1/19/16)



https://gop.com/coincidence-or-not-w...iran-payments/

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U.S. Sent Iran $400 Million When They Released Hostages

Wednesday, August 3, 2016 at 11:00am



The U.S. sent $400 million to Iran in January just as the country decided to release four Americans. The administration claims they did not pay a ransom, but many have raised their eyebrows.

President Barack Obama said the payment “represented the first installment of a $1.7 billion settlement the Obama administration reached with Iran to resolve a decades-old dispute over a failed arms deal signed just before the 1979 fall of Iran’s last monarch, Shah Mohammad Reza Pahlavi.”

The payment also came when Iran and the West agreed on a nuclear deal. Obama celebrated the deal and the release by saying “the time was right to resolve this dispute as well.” However, Obama never mentioned that they just sent $400 million “in an unmarked cargo plane.”

They had to give Iran the money in foreign currency because laws forbid transactions with Iran using American money. The Wall Street Journal explained how the deal happened:

The Iranians were demanding the return of $400 million the Shah’s regime deposited into a Pentagon trust fund in 1979 to purchase U.S. fighter jets, U.S. officials said. They also wanted billions of dollars as interest accrued since then.

President Obama approved the shipment of the $400 million. But accumulating so much cash presented a logistical and security challenge, said U.S. and European officials. One person briefed on the operation joked: “You can’t just withdraw that much money from ATMs.”
Mr. Kerry and the State and Treasury departments sought the cooperation of the Swiss and Dutch governments. Ultimately, the Obama administration transferred the equivalent of $400 million to their central banks. It was then converted into other currencies, stacked onto the wooden pallets and sent to Iran on board a cargo plane.
On the morning of Jan. 17, Iran released the four Americans: Three of them boarded a Swiss Air Force jet and flew off to Geneva, with the fourth returning to the U.S. on his own. In return, the U.S. freed seven Iranian citizens and dropped extradition requests for 14 others.

Professor Jacobson wrote about four prisoners Iran received in return for our guys. They certainly sound swell.

Of course, officials said the timing was a coincidence:

“As we’ve made clear, the negotiations over the settlement of an outstanding claim…were completely separate from the discussions about returning our American citizens home,” State Department spokesman John Kirby said. “Not only were the two negotiations separate, they were conducted by different teams on each side, including, in the case of The Hague claims, by technical experts involved in these negotiations for many years.”

Senator Tom Cotton (R-AR) does not buy the explanation:

“This break with longstanding U.S. policy put a price on the head of Americans, and has led Iran to continue its illegal seizures” of Americans, he said.

To make matters worse, the Iranian government “arrested two more Iranian-Americans” since then. This is why Senator Mark Kirk (R-IL) is against paying ransoms:

“Paying ransom to kidnappers puts Americans even more at risk,” Sen. Mark Kirk, R-Ill., said ina statement. “While Americans were relieved by Iran’s overdue release of illegally imprisoned American hostages, the White House’s policy of appeasement has led Iran to illegally seize more American hostages.”

Now Congress wants to pass legislation that will stop the administration from sending more money to Iran and provide details of this $1.7 billion deal:

“President Obama’s…payment to Iran in January, which we now know will fund Iran’s military expansion, is an appalling example of executive branch governance,” said Sen. James Lankford (R., Okla.), who co-wrote the bill. “Subsidizing Iran’s military is perhaps the worst use of taxpayer dollars ever by an American president.”

CIA Director John Brennan insists Iran has used the money “for development projects” like supporting its own currency, providing “moneys to departments and agencies, build up its infrastructure.”

The U.S. still owes $1.3 million to Iran.

http://legalinsurrection.com/2016/08...ased-hostages/

Last month, the Obama administration celebrated the one-year anniversary of the nuclear deal by claiming that Iran has fully complied with the agreement.

There is compelling evidence this is false and that Iran has been engaged in massive cheating. In addition, contrary to assurances by President Obama and Secretary of State Kerry that the nuclear agreement would improve U.S.–Iran relations and help bring Iran into the community of nations, Iran’s behavior has worsened and our relationship with the mullahs has weakened since the nuclear deal was announced.

Ad Nauseum....more deceit by this admin on iran deal .... ...meanwhile......

Iran to build a statue of captured US sailors

Iran's Revolutionary Guard likely to cause outrage in US with plans to build a statue of 10 American Marines captured in January as a "tourist attraction"


By Ahmed Vahdat 3:14PM GMT 18 Mar 2016

Iran’s Revolutionary Guard is planning to build a statue of the US sailors who were captured in Iranian waters earlier this year, a senior officer said.

The provocative proposal is likely to cause outrage in the US and be seized on by Republicans opposed to President Barack Obama’s nuclear agreement with Iran.

Commander Ali Fadavi, the head of the Guard’s naval forces, said the monument of the surrendering Americans would be a “tourist attraction”.

“There are very many photographs of the major incident of arresting US Marines in the Persian Gulf in the media and we intend to build a symbol out of them inside one of our naval monuments,” he told Iran’s Defense Press news agency.

The type of riverine command boat apprehended by Iran Photo: US Navy/AP

The capture of the 10 US sailors in January was hailed by hardliners in Tehran as a victory over the US and presented as proof that Iran was still resisting America despite the nuclear deal.

Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, Iran’s supreme leader, said the arrest of the sailors was “God’s deed” and presented medals to the Iranians involved.

The sailors were held at gunpoint and paraded before the cameras but released after a day following phone calls between John Kerry, the US secretary of state, and Javad Zarif, the Iranian foreign ministry.

While the Obama administration expressed outrage over the incident, officials said later that the sailors swift release was evidence that communication between the US and Iran was improving after years of estrangement.


But Republicans, including Donald Trump, lambasted the White House and accused President Barack Obama of weakness in the face of Iranian aggression.

"Those young people were on their hands and knees in a begging position with their hands up and thugs behind them with guns, and then we talk like it's OK. It's not OK. It's lack of respect,” Mr Trump said.

Iran’s hardliners are under pressure after the successful negotiation of the nuclear agreement and the victory of the relatively moderate allies of President Hassan Rouhani in last month’s elections.

The construction of the statue would fit with a pattern of provocative behavior intended to show the Guard are still a major player inside Iran.

Earlier this month the Guard test fired two ballistic missiles with the words “Israel must be wiped out” written on their sides in Hebrew. Joe Biden, the US vice president, was visiting Israel at the time of the launch.

The statue is likely to be built on Kharg, a small Iranian island in the Persian Gulf not far from where the sailors were captured.

The monument could feature as a stop for travelers on the Rahian-e-Nour, a semi-mandatory pro-regime pilgrimage that takes visitors to historical spots from the Iran-Iraq war and extols the virtues of the Iranian military.

Commander Fadavi is head of the Revolutionary Guard’s own naval force, which is separate from the main Iranian navy. As well as a military force, the Guard owns a vast economic empire inside Iran.

The Guard report directly to the Supreme Leader and not to the elected president.

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/middleeast/iran/12197979/Iran-to-build-a-statue-of-captured-US-sailors.html

also see.....how O thanked iran for the way they treated our sailors & fired the commodore.
http://www.foxnews.com/us/2016/06/24...s-sailors.html

This administration is a disaster, a complete failure on every level.

Just five months to go.

White House Admits $400 Million Payment May Have Funded Terrorism

Justin Koski August 3, 2016 at 2:53pm


Video Transcript:
Wednesday morning, reports are calling the Obama administration’s payment to Iran the same day four hostages were released a ransom.

LT. COL. RALPH PETERS: This was definitely a ransom or a bribe, if you’d prefer to call it that. It was clearly a sweetener to get the [Iran] deal through and to get the Iranian Americans released. And the problem is, Elizabeth, that we did pay ransom. That’s how it looks to the rest of the world. It encourages people to take more Americans prisoner as the Iranians already have done. They’ve got two, possibly a third right now.

Benghazi hero Kris Paronto agreed that a ransom would endanger more Americans.
PARONTO: We are continually being deceived by this administration and that’s how I see it. When you pay for ransoms or you pay ransoms for anybody that’s been kidnapped overseas — whether it be terrorists, whether it be a country that sponsors terrorism — you’re making it a business now. And what you’re doing is you’re endangering the troops, you’re endangering personnel, you’re endangering diplomats downrange, and that’s essentially what he’s done.

The State Department has argued that the payment was coincidental with the release of prisoners, but Peters disagrees.

PETERS: The Obama administration says again and again, they don’t pay ransoms, they don’t pay bribes, blah, blah, blah.

OBAMA: I am reaffirming that the United States government will not make concessions such as paying ransom to terrorist groups holding American hostages.

PETERS: But they do and if this was above board, it this was all perfectly honest, why was it done in the dead of night with an unmarked cargo plane in Swiss francs and euros to avoid, to get around the U.S. law that you can’t traffic with Iran in dollars? It smells to high heaven. But it’s business as usual for the Obama administration.

The White House admits the money Iran received may have gone to fund terrorism.

JOSH EARNEST: Largely, that money was spent for, to address the dire economic condition of the nation of Iran. We know that Iran supports terrorism. We know that Iran supports Hezbollah and the [Bashar al-]Assad regime, and it certainly is possible that some of the money that Iran has is being used for those purposes too.

http://www.westernjournalism.com/whi...ded-terrorism/

They just lie like dogs. No conscience. They're all sociopaths.

The fact is, the money was the Irian People's money, and so, instead of handing the money over to a terrorist government, the money should have been air dropped at high noon over the most populated market places in Iran.

Instead, Obama intentionally chose to give $ 400 million in unmark bills to a terrorist government which will be used to finance more terrorist activities and bloodshed around the world.

Additionally, I wonder how much of the unmarked laundered money will show up on Obama's doorstep in a big, fat brown paper bag.

JWK

The Obama/Hillary Administration has given aid and comfort to our sworn enemies by releasing them from GITMO and paid hundreds of millions in ransom for the return of our military personnel.

August 07, 2016, 09:59 am

Cotton: 'Shocking' to Americans that government acting like 'drug cartel'

By Rebecca Savransky




Sen. Tom Cotton (R-Ark.) on Sunday slammed the Obama administration for its $400 million cash payment to Iran.

"The administration has consistently stonewalled Congress and the American people. We didn't know @ the cash payment for instance, we didn't know that it was paid for with bills that could be easily laundered and used for terrorism...we didn't know that the Department of Justice opposed it," he said.

"I think it's really shocking to most Americans that the United States government was acting like a drug cartel...stacking cash on a pallet and wrapping it in cellophane and flying it in an unmarked aircraft to give to the world's worst state-sponsored terrorism."

Cotton said there are still a lot of questions that need to be answered on the issue.

Last week, reports surfaced that the Obama administration had airlifted $400 million cash in foreign currencies to Iran, with the payment arriving on the same day that four American prisoners were released.

The money was the first installment of a $1.7 billion settlement that the two countries agreed to regarding an abandoned arms deal from the 1970s.

President Obama has said the payment was not a ransom payment.

"It doesn't really matter though what President Obama says," Cotton said Sunday.

"It matters what the Iranians think and it matters what dictators, terrorists and gangsters all around the world think and they clearly think that this was a ransom payment."

http://thehill.com/blogs/blog-briefi...ting-like-drug